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Startup Ideas

blog.ycombinator.com

151–160 of 470 posts

Re: Startup Ideas

#151
The animal communication AI sounds really interesting. With enough video and audio recording seems pretty doable, too. Imagine being able to interpret all the bird tweets in the area.

Re: Startup Ideas

#153
post #34

> Social Network for Children Counterpoint-- this should not be built. Kids already have a social network, it's called the playground at school. Having children engage with their friends outside of school time is a fine goal, but there are plenty of existing after-school activities that encourage this interaction. These activities also don't put the undue stress of having to decipher typed language, nuance, and other…

Aren't Club Penguin, Animal Jam, etc. social networks for children? You can't collect real info about children or have real photos of them, so giving them a fun avatar and persona to hang out with other anonymous friends seems like the best way of handling the big problem with social networks for kids without getting into trouble.

Re: Startup Ideas

#154
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could probably sell a lot in Germany too. Germans are crazy about analysing their own feces.

Yes! Their toilets have a special shape so that one can look at their own poo before flushing it.

I found that out the hard way when I went to the Czech Republic.

Re: Startup Ideas

#155
post #3

That moment when someone reveals a lot about what itches they're currently scratching... > Buyer’s Remorse Insurance Money back guarantee for art buyers: Buying fine art has a steep learning curve.

I thought the same thing. I wonder if Justin just bought a $400 million Da Vinci only to find out it might not be real.... :)

Re: Startup Ideas

#156

> Accounts Receivables as a Service https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/kinder-gentler-debt-collec... > Adwords for Outdoor and Transit Advertising ADstruc, ADquick > Modern Firefighting Really intrigued by this one. I would go further and say disaster relief in general, as living in Puerto Rico showed me how ill-equipped we are to deal with finding the status of people with no communications, and getting aid to the ri…

re: debt collection: just my experience in several small/startup companies... Sending your biggest (only) customer to a debt collector, no matter how gentle, might be counterproductive.

We often get a PO from a reputable, but disorganized or bureaucratic BigCo. We want that to be a good relationship, and we want more business from BigCo. We want positive reviews and testimonials from them. BigCo. is good for the money...eventually... but like any BigCo. they have all the leverage and for many reasons can delay payment until it is convenient for them. Meanwhile we need to pay bills.

As such, a gentler debt collector is not really what we want since the person we would nag (however gently) would likely be the person who needs to green light future projects and be a champion in future discussions throughout BigCo.

What we typically do in the worst case is tell them that it's been great working with you, but we have employees and bills to pay, so if the invoice isn't paid, unfortunately we will have to disable their account in X days. 99% of the time we get paid the next day. The 1% we had to disable were likely never going to be good customers so I am glad we fired them.

Granted, this only works in a SaaS like scenario, not in cases where the work is one-time and handed over to the customer. In those cases, I would recommend requiring pre-payment, at least partial pre-payment. I often pay programmers on fixed bid projects 33% up front, 33% on release for acceptance testing, and 33% when final bugs are fixed. We both take risks, but if we have both done due diligence, then there's rarely a problem.

A smart contract that auto-pays upon (phased) delivery, etc. could be useful, and remove a lot of hassle/anxiety.

From what I've seen, can't that be done "out of the box" today with an ethereum contract?

Re: Startup Ideas

#157

AR as a service is something I've been thinking about for a while. I was thinking more "Stripe for Purchase Orders" though. I can definitely see my business using this. It's a billion dollar business if done correctly.

The "use blockchain" people are missing it. This is for dealing with companies that handle purchases through the very traditional Quote -> Purchase Order -> Delivery -> Invoice -> Payment system.

EDIT: re-read the parent and I think I grok now. So why can't the "traditional" quote to cash be embodied on ethereum?

Re: Startup Ideas

#158
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know at least one company offering this in a modern package.

Which one? Paid labs? This is a big problem we've faced too, currently our bookkeeper does it for us, which can get expensive as they charge by the hour.

Tesorio
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